Feb 28th, full moon and the Run For Ray half marathon scoop. . . .

Run For Ray and bleeding nipples. . . . . tony hawk (and sometimes no one really gives a shit if you ran 13 odd miles in the middle of some treacherous woods.  nor do they care if you cleared out yr studio of 1.5 years today 'cause you no longer get downtown to work there. . . . . )
today brought a brutal effort at a half-marathon distance of 13.1 miles, on some isolated trails of sadistic sand and roots and slopes and in 1h 48min (8.2 min pace) i completed the race. 17th in a field of 48. not a fast race, but the terrain was more technical than fast, which literally sent me flying down a hill once and then slingshotted me up a hill into a small tree the next time. . . . .


beyond the accomplishment of a solid race in some good woods, my son Kyote Vincent Edge was able to meet Tony Hawk, who was there to support the race (which is a benefit for Ray Underhill, one of the original bones-brigade skaters of my youth, who fought chordoma cancer until his eventual passing in 2008). a beautiful race in some beautiful woods with some good people.
now i go to work my saturday night shift. . . . i will be waddling everywhere i go for sure.

well the run started over flat, packed sand & gravel construction roads. a group of 48 runners ran the half marathon-- aka the pikermi. . . . the 5k and the 10k, starting ten staggered minutes after us, shoved another 150 runners into the guts of Brunswick county brack. . . . the pikermi group poured and heaved into a thicket thrusting outta some deep pine-snarl of the foot-gnarl that was to come. . . . a dragon’s mouth of 35 degrees. . . . . the bears’ paws and protruding claws were buried in the forest we now entered, with back-jamming pits from recently removed trees, various stumps nearly invisible, and the total isolation of running in the woods. and it did not start well. graceless.  the first loop suggested I fail within the first two miles, had me cursing the very idea of finishing the loop, nevermind running it twice more. I was already hitting a dandy wall and my legs were skiing the 35 degree slope as hard as they could and then a small creek and then the work continued. . . . . dante’s first circle. . . . . but of only three rather than nine and thus I continued. Gatorade, head-rinse of two oz. of water. a 5k completed. . . . . then the isolation began, the haunting depression that left me near tears twice in this run. like an lsd trip, my mind wandered into deep caverns of consciousness, following a full moon, following an 8.8 richter scale reading in a quack in chile, sending a tsunami warning across the southern hemisphere, across my wife’s strange fatigue and melancholia, my child’s inexhaustible nature, my shoes buried in pine straw with roots ripping hard at ankles, sharp as piano wire. . . . bach. . . . . . de kooning—a de kooning tattoo. de kooning’s alcoholism and dementia. dementia. thinking of tattoos-- my iguana. thinking of numbers—first aid station on trail was about two miles into the woods, we added .3 miles on a side trail with turnaround on the first loop then .8 miles the next two loops, thus I am around 4 miles and up a road, the other runners panting and bobbing and hands flapping on unconscious arms waving against leg kicks and the kayaking adventure two birthdays ago. . . . . . egon schiele. . . . . tattoo of egon schiele. . . . . . drenched in blues and paynes gray and bold lines around his brooding brow and perched, serious lips. scrutinized. the legs keep pumping up steep inclines, break-backs and switch-backs and not a damned straight-way on this ankle-breaking trail. gogol bordello.  the invisible (severed) tree trunks four inches above ground; one loses perceptions of the height of one’s foot in these types of runs. . . . . hours of this then the final kicks and bleeding nipples staining my running shirt and the epiphany of completion and the marvel of accomplishment.